[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 106 (Thursday, July 17, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H7024]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  TSA AWARDED PORKER OF THE WEEK AWARD

  (Mr. HEFLEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HEFLEY. Madam Speaker, the Transportation Security Administration 
is only a year old but is already wasting funds like an old-time 
Federal bureaucracy. The agency that is responsible for staffing the 
Nation's airports with security personnel is also responsible for 
nearly $250 million of waste.
  Given the new and enormous task of securing 429 airports around the 
country, there is bound to be some financial waste. But the extent of 
the TSA's largess is indefensible. It has overstaffed rural airports, 
paid security companies inflated rates, purchased more than a thousand 
baggage scanners with dated technology for a million dollars apiece, 
leased sport utility vehicles for $200,000 a year rather than lease 
less-expensive sedans, and entered into a contract to recruit Federal 
screeners that escalated from the original estimate of $100 million to 
nearly $700 million, all of this on top of last year's $410,000 expense 
just to furnish the offices of the director and his chief aides.
  Madam Speaker, the TSA gets my Porker of the Week Award.

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